What does Trend Analysis (or "Horizontal Analysis") in relation to analyzing financial statements? It refers to scanning the external environment to look for trends that could create strategic opportunities for an organization. It refers to the process of analyzing performance from one period to another to look for changes over time. It refers to reading down a single column of a financial statement to understand how specific items relate to other items in the same report. It refers to analyzing the internal working environment of an organization to understand how its culture was formed and how that contributes to its current cultural dynamics